Editing Sumer (section)

===Social and family life===
[[File:Reconstructed sumerian headgear necklaces british museum.JPG|thumb|upright=.6|A reconstruction in the British Museum of headgear and necklaces worn by the women at the [[Royal Cemetery at Ur]].]]
In the early Sumerian period, the primitive pictograms suggest<ref name="Sayce"/> that
* "Pottery was very plentiful, and the forms of the vases, bowls and dishes were manifold; there were special jars for honey, butter, oil and wine, which was probably made from dates. Some of the vases had pointed feet, and stood on stands with crossed legs; others were flat-bottomed, and were set on square or rectangular frames of wood. The oil-jars, and probably others also, were sealed with clay, precisely as in early [[Egypt]]. Vases and dishes of stone were made in imitation of those of clay."
* "A feathered head-dress was worn. Beds, stools and chairs were used, with carved legs resembling those of an ox. There were fire-places and fire-altars."
* "Knives, drills, wedges and an instrument that looks like a saw were all known. While spears, bows, arrows, and daggers (but not swords) were employed in war."
* "Tablets were used for writing purposes. Daggers with metal blades and wooden handles were worn, and copper was hammered into plates, while necklaces or collars were made of gold."
* "Time was reckoned in lunar months."

There is considerable evidence concerning [[Sumerian music]]. [[Lyres]] and flutes were played, among the best-known examples being the [[Lyres of Ur]].<ref name="Goss_2017_mesopotamian_flutes">{{cite web |last=Goss |first=Clint |title=Flutes of Gilgamesh and Ancient Mesopotamia |url=http://www.Flutopedia.com/mesopotamian_flutes.htm |date=15 April 2017 |website=Flutopedia |access-date=14 June 2017 }}</ref>

Sumerian culture was male-dominated and stratified. The [[Code of Ur-Nammu]], the oldest such codification yet discovered, dating to the Ur III, reveals a glimpse at societal structure in late Sumerian law. Beneath the ''lu-gal'' ("great man" or king), all members of society belonged to one of two basic strata: The "''lu''" or free person, and the slave (male, ''arad''; female ''geme''). The son of a ''lu'' was called a ''dumu-nita'' until he married. A woman (''munus'') went from being a daughter (''dumu-mi''), to a wife (''dam''), then if she outlived her husband, a widow (''numasu'') and she could then remarry another man who was from the same tribe.{{Citation needed|date=September 2019}}

In early Sumer women played an important public rule as priestesses. They could also own property, transact business and had their rights protected by the courts. Sons and daughters inherited property on equal terms. The status of women deteriorated in the centuries after 2300 BC. Their right to dispose of their property was limited, and the female deities also lost their former importance.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Baring |first1=Anne |last2=Cashford |first2=Jules |title=The Myth of the Goddess Evolution of an Image |date=1993 |publisher=Penguin Books Limited |isbn=9780141941400 |page=159}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last1=Glassman |first1=Ronald M. |title=The Origins of Democracy in Tribes, City-States and Nation-States |date=2017 |publisher=Springer International Publishing |isbn=9783319516950 |page=344}}</ref>

Inscriptions describing the reforms of king [[Urukagina]] of Lagash ({{circa|2350 BC}}) say that he abolished the former custom of [[polyandry]] in his country, prescribing that a woman who took multiple husbands be stoned with rocks upon which her crime had been written.<ref>Cinthia Gannett (1992). [https://books.google.com/books?id=mpjk74blFDgC&dq=urukagina+%22two+men%22&pg=PA62 ''Gender and the Journal: Diaries and Academic Discourse,'' p. 62].</ref>
{{multiple image
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| header=Sumerian princess ({{circa|2150 BC}})
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| caption1 = A Sumerian princess of the time of Gudea {{circa|2150 BC}}.
| image2   = Sumerian princess of the time of Gudea 2150 BCE. Louvre Museum AO 295.jpg
| caption2 = Frontal detail.<br />Louvre Museum AO 295.
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Marriages were usually arranged by the parents of the bride and groom;<ref name=Kramer1963>{{cite book|last1=Kramer|first1=Samuel Noah|title=The Sumerians: Their History, Culture, and Character|date=1963|publisher=The Univ. of Chicago Press|isbn=978-0-226-45238-8|url=https://archive.org/details/sumerianstheirhi00samu|url-access=registration}}</ref>{{rp|78}} engagements were usually completed through the approval of contracts recorded on clay tablets.<ref name=Kramer1963/>{{rp|78}} These marriages became legal as soon as the groom delivered a bridal gift to his bride's father.<ref name=Kramer1963/>{{rp|78}} One Sumerian proverb describes the ideal, happy marriage, through the mouth of a husband, who boasts that his wife has borne him eight sons and is still eager to have sex.<ref name="NemetNejat">{{citation |last=Nemet-Nejat |first=Karen Rhea |title=Daily Life in Ancient Mesopotamia |date=1998 |page=[https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinancie00neme/page/132 132] |url=https://archive.org/details/dailylifeinancie00neme/page/132 |publisher=Greenwood |isbn=978-0-313-29497-6 |author-link=Karen Rhea Nemet-Nejat}}.</ref>

The Sumerians considered it desirable for women to still be [[virgin]]s at the time of marriage,<ref name="Cooper"/>{{rp|100–101}} but did not expect the same of men,<ref name="Cooper"/>{{rp|102–103}} although one author considers [[premarital sex]] in general to have been discouraged.<ref>Dale Launderville. ''Celibacy in the Ancient World: Its Ideal and Practice in Pre-Hellenistic Israel, Mesopotamia, and Greece,'' p. 28.</ref> Neither Sumerian nor Akkadian had a word exactly corresponding to the English word '[[virginity]]', and the concept was expressed descriptively, for example as ''a/é-nu-gi<sub>4</sub>-a'' (Sum.)/''la naqbat'' (Akk.) 'un-deflowered', or ''giš nunzua'', 'never having known a penis'.<ref name="Cooper">{{cite book|last1=Cooper|first1=Jerrold S.|article=Virginity in Ancient Mesopotamia|title=Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East: Proceedings of the 47th Rencontre Assyriologique Internationale, Helsinki|year=2001|location=Baltimore, Maryland|publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press|url=http://krieger2.jhu.edu/neareast/pdf/jcooper/jc%20Virginity.pdf|isbn=978-951-45-9054-2}}</ref>{{rp|91–93}} It is unclear whether terms such as ''šišitu'' in Akkadian medical texts indicate the hymen, but it appears that the intactness of the hymen was much less relevant to assessing a woman's virginity than in later cultures of the Near East. Most assessments of virginity depended on the woman's own account.<ref name="Cooper"/>{{rp|91–92}}

From the earliest records, the Sumerians had very relaxed attitudes toward sex.<ref name="Dening1996">{{cite book |last=Dening |first=Sarah |url=https://archive.org/details/mythologyofsexan0000deni |title=The Mythology of Sex |date=1996 |publisher=Macmillan |isbn=978-0-02-861207-2 |location=London, England |chapter=Chapter 3: Sex in Ancient Civilizations |chapter-url=http://www.ishtartemple.org/myth.htm |url-access=registration}}</ref> Their [[Sexual ethics|sexual mores]] were determined not by whether a sexual act was deemed immoral, but rather by whether or not it made a person ritually unclean.<ref name="Dening1996"/> The Sumerians widely believed that [[masturbation]] enhanced sexual potency, both for men and for women,<ref name="Dening1996"/> and they frequently engaged in it, both alone and [[Mutual masturbation|with their partners]].<ref name="Dening1996"/> The Sumerians did not regard [[anal sex]] as taboo either.<ref name="Dening1996"/> ''Entu'' priestesses were forbidden from producing offspring<ref name="Leick2013">{{citation |last=Leick |first=Gwendolyn |title=Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian Literature |page=219 |year=2013 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=WKoWblE4pd0C&pg=PA64 |location=New York |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-92074-7 |orig-year=1994}}.</ref><ref name="NemetNejat"/> and frequently engaged in anal sex as a method of [[birth control]].<ref name="Leick2013"/>{{request quotation|date=May 2024}}<ref name="Dening1996"/>{{unreliable source?|date=May 2024}}<!--The author appeats to be a psychotherapist best known for having written 'The Everyday I-Ching'. Not an Assyriologist, not a historian or anything of the sort. The topic is the mythology of sex, not its practice. It seems dubious the book is a reliable source for this claim.--><ref name="NemetNejat"/>{{failed verification|date=May 2024}}

Prostitution existed, but it is not clear if [[sacred prostitution]] did.<ref name=Black/>{{rp|151}}